Hi There ! My name is Mario Yannakakis. I have decided to take the plunge and create my own personal portfolio.
My background has truly been a wonderful experience / journey into the world of digital media and research.

My skillset is kind of unique in that I have been for the better part of ten years or so a trainer, teacher, mentor and lecturer in multimedia applications and design of those applications.
I do remember the days when Kai's Power Tools ruled the roost in Photoshop and its then that my 'aha moment' came along. Thats when I realised that Graphical User Interfaces needed to change to suit the majority of users.

Let's make no mistake here but my dedication to digital media has been one of true grit, determination and persistence. My journey began in 1996 when I bought myself a 386 Pentium Pro with DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11. Let me state this loud and clear "I did not know what to do with it". I was still fascinated and interested all the same so I decided to buy CorelDRAW and do the tutorials written in the manual just so I could attempt to get into a multimedia course.

Eventually that led me to RMIT in 1999, then Swinburne University to study design and multimedia. In 2014 I graduated from the Master of Design - Digital Media Design at Swinburne University and now in June 2015, completed the User Experience Design Immersive 10-week Monday-Friday all day course at General Assembly.

The Early Years

I am the third son to a greek immigrant family that decided to come 'off the boat' in the early to mid 1960's. I am extremely proud to say that I was born with a mild case of Cerebral Palsy, whereby things were really tough in growing up and developing as a human being. When I finished Year 12/HSC at Mount Waverley High School, I looked for work. To my dismay there was no work in the 1990's that was available to a person with Cerebral Palsy. So I joined the queue. Disappointing as it sounded I remained on there for seven years. But by then I had learned to accept that I had to fight and educate myself in order to better myself.

So here I am now getting closer and closer to my dream of finding out whether I still have the same punch and kick all of those years ago in trying to find work. By creating this website I hope you can see that I am proud, passionate and devoted to this industry whether it be me studying, lecturing or producing new concepts or ideas for a client.